Sir King!" he shouted; but at the same
moment another Knight on foot threw himself between, raising a huge
battle-axe, and crying, "Away, away, Sir; leave me to deal with him!"
Enrique turned, entered the river, and safely swam his horse to the
other side, whilst his champion was engaged in desperate conflict.

The Knight of Lynwood caught the first blow on his shield, and returned
it, but without the slightest effect on his antagonist, who, though
short in stature, and clumsily made, seemed to possess gigantic
strength. A few moments more, and Reginald had fallen at full length
on the grass, while his enemy was pressing on, to secure him as a
prisoner, or to seize the pennon which Eustace held. The two Squires
stood with lifted swords before their fallen master, but it cost only
another of those irresistible strokes to stretch Gaston beside Sir
Reginald, and Eustace was left alone to maintain the struggle. A few
moments more, and the Lances would come up--but how impossible to hold
out! The first blow cleft his shield in two, and though it did not
pierce his armour, the shock brought him to his knee, and without the
support of the staff of the pennon he would have been on the ground.
Still, however, he kept up his defence, using sometimes his sword, and
sometimes the staff, to parry the strokes of his assailant; but the
strife was too unequal, and faint with violent exertion, as well as
dizzied by a stroke which the temper of his helmet had resisted, he
felt that all would be over with him in another second, when his
sinking energies were revived by the cry of "St. George," close at
hand. His enemy relaxing his attack, he sprang to his feet, and that
instant found himself enclosed, almost swept away, by a crowd of
combatants of inferior degree, as well as his own comrades as Free
Lances, all of whose weapons were turned upon his opponent. A sword
was lifted over the enemy's head from behind, and would the next moment
have descended, but that Eustace sprang up, dashed it aside, cried
"Shame!" and grasping the arm of the threatened Knight, exclaimed,
"Yield, yield! it is your only hope!"

"Yield? and to thee?" said the Knight; "yet it is well meant. The
sword of Arthur himself would be of no avail. Tiphaine was right! It
is the fated day. Thou art of gentle birth? I yield me then, rescue
or no rescue, the rather that I see thou art a gallant youth. Hark you,
fellows, I am a prisoner, so get off with you. Your